The Death and Dreams of Grizzly Adams
by Anotherjaneway
Summary: Mad Jack the trapper of Utah finishes his story of James Capen Adams for all time.
1. Chapter 1

The Life And Times of Grizzly Adams

Introduction to the 1977 TV series...

Narration by the trapper, mountain man:  
"They call me Mad Jack. And if there's anybody in these mountains that knows the real story of James Adams, that'd be me. So I'm puttin' it down into writin' just the way it happened in hopes of setting the records straight. My friend Adams was accused of a crime he didn't commit. So he escaped into the mountains, leaving behind the only life that he ever knew. Now that wilderness out there ain't no place for a green horn and his chances of survivin' were... mighty slim. Weren't no time at all before he was beaten down, ragged and nearly starved. Along about then, he come upon a grizzly bear cub, all alone and helpless. Now Adams knew that little critter couldn't survive without his help so he started right down that cliff, risking his own life, to save it. *chuckling* Now that cub took to Adams right off. And that was when he discovered, he had a... special kind of way with animals. They just come right up to him like he was a natural part of the wilderness. But that bear cub, he was extra special. And as he growed he became the best friend Adams ever had and together,... they became a legend."

Series Title Songtrack sung by Thom Pace "Deep inside the forest is a door into another land,  
Here is our life and home,  
We are staying, here forever in the beauty of this place all alone,  
We keep on hoping...

Maybe, there's a world where we won't have to run, and Maybe, there's a time we'll call our own,  
Living free in harmony and majesty,  
Take me home,  
Take me home.

Walking through the land where every living thing is beautiful,  
why does it has to end.  
We are calling.. oh so sadly on the whisper of the wind as we send,  
a dying message."

Original Story- The Death and Dreams of Grizzly Adams

Mad Jack: "It's been fifteen years, I reckon, since me, the greenhorn, and that old bear Ben of his, first became friends. Another winter has me holed up on the south side of Beaver Meadow a few ridges away from where Nakoma family's has left a signal fire to mark out a special cache, for me to find. I have with me, my diary I've made about Adams. And this current month's entry by firelight may be the last I'll ever have the honor of laying a pen to, on the tale of James Capen Adams. I'm thawing out Nakoma's bundle that he left for me, of Adam's, but I'm scared to death of what I might find when I open it."

The bitter cold had long ago receded enough for the pain in Mad Jack's fingers to ease into the fine motions needed for appropriate quillin'. The trapper sighed as he proofread what he had just jotted down. Another dip into the yew berry ink suddenly became forgotten when the fire finally teased out a very familiar scent of acorn soaped hide and ceremonial herbs.

The white bearded, tan buckskin hide dressed old timer looked up from his driftwood bound desk inside the shanty in which he had taken refuge after his very last late fall trading trip through the pass for the year. The buffalo hide bundle was ready to share its heart. "Oh, All Mighty the Creator, Number Seven." said Mad Jack to his mule, sharing a fenced off stall near the fire, inside the solidly built claim of moss and river logs. "I ain't never wanted to be the one. Not for this. Not in a million years." The light gray Number Seven lifted his smokey head and brayed a clarion chorus of mule-ish sympathetic agreement. The smell of his oat mash breath was no comfort to Mad Jack when he set his feather pen aside and got up from his stool to go kneel stiffly by the blazing stone and pitch hearth.

Jack's fingers trembled as he untied the leather string and beaded lacing from around the still steaming hide. "This is theirs, Number Seven. Their blood brother bundle. No one should ever invade another man's privacy, but I'm the only one here, Lord willin', who can." Unthinking, Mad Jack's gnarled hand roamed to finger the strong scented, body ripe, prayer sack that he wore nestled around his neck. "I never thought this day would come. When his story,... finally comes to an end."

Summer.. Utah, Prospect River Ridge.

"Hey Natasha." said Grizzly Adams to a hooded red tailed hawk, sitting on a pine pole perch, just outside his cabin. "How's that leg doing today?"  
he asked, reaching for her with a piece of dried fish jerky. Natasha sounded a string of frustrated shrieks, hungrily accepting the food. Adams smiled through his silver shot beard. "Don't worry. There's more where that came from. I've got a whole bowl here just for you." he sat, removing the leather sacking from around her eyes so the bird could reach down and feed herself with her beak and good talon.

Next to the rain barrel, Benjamin, the grizzly bear lifted his shaggy head and put up a grayed paw in a morning greeting that was both sleepy and mildly protesting. "Arrrgh? Ahwww..." Ben moaned, sniffing the air and drooling over what was in Adam's hands.

Adams the mountain man laughed long and hard at his companion's antics. "You never change, Ben. I haven't forgotten nothing. I've a trout right here with your name on it." he said, reaching into the rain barrel to quickly catch a flopping brown spot from the water. "All right you greedy old cuss, here's your breakfast. Eat before me. That's the only way I like it." he told Ben.

A curious raccoon ambled and climbed onto Adam's axe hewn pine slab picnic table and reared up with two paws, chittering.

Adams looked at his new visitor with an appraising eye. "Abel, now you're going to have to wait for yours. I ain't made up my flapjacks in bacon grease yet. But I promise I will. You go have yourself a good wash in the creekbed. I'll come join you in a minute." he told the coon. "Have you seen Maybelle?"

The racoon chattered again, affording the pink long johned and wool woven suspendered Adams a wave of his half puma chewed tail to the left as he scampered off the table and onto an upturned stump seat propped in the direction of the brook.

Adams glanced over and finally spotted the striped skunk, moving calmly through the dewy meadow grass and flowers by the fallen log Adams used as a canoe prop. "Ah, there you are, girl. Here, have your mushroom. It'll be good for those babies of yours, too." he told the black and white ball of fluff responding to the sound of his warm, inviting voice. He pulled out a large morel from a trousers pocket and tossed it to Maybelle, who immediately began feasting as she called in her brood to share.

"Now that's how to start a morning off right, Ben. Isn't that the truth?" he said, watching his furry friend peel off fish skin from his bite killed fish, daintily dining afterwards, with his overly long claws and yellow teeth. The bear moaned a polite reply.

Going back into the cabin, Adams found his hide towel and hand made soap so he could enjoy a good scrubbing down in the river. He returned outside, already gold with the rising dawn. "You should take a bath with me, Ben. You need one. You still have bits of honey comb in your fur from last night. Couldn't you have saved some of that honey for me? Your best friend?"

The grizzly did not answer, still balancing his mangled trout breakfast on all four of his feet as he rolled over onto his back to feast from where it was perched on his paws.

"I'll remember that the next time I go fishing." Adams promised. "You know, for a bear, you're not too smart when it comes to sharing things."

Adam's smile was only half extinguished when he walked past Ben and headed towards the water with his bathing gear. He had found a good spot just below the falls past the rapids when he heard a sudden screaming begin.

It was not a puma. Adams knew that the instant he broke into a dead run towards the yelling. "Ben!" he shouted to the bear. "Swim over to the other side of the river and see if you can spot anyone! Ben! Do you hear me? Go!" the mountain man commanded.

The grizzly obeyed out of love and because he understood the sounds of terror as meaning that something near by was in distress. The bear made the plunge and was swiftly across and running parallel to the shore to Adams' path, heading upstream towards the cascading water fall which was newly swollen from the previous day's rain.

"It's a child, Ben!" yelled Adams, running into the shallows at the base of the falls around the deep pool. He could hear the screams growing weaker, echoing around the rocks above him.  
"I just know it!" Grizzly Adams felt helpless as he watched the cliff above for a change, any change, that would reveal the source of pain and suffering they could both hear.

Finally, a tan jerkin and a red ribboned form shot out over the falls limply, to land in the pool below.

Adams did not hesitate, he peeled off his shoulder bag and leaped into the amber depths after the tiny body he saw plunge down and down. She was caught in the undertow.  
Only belatedly did Adams realize that he, too, could become trapped in the torrent beneath the falls. But he reached down anyway and grabbed the unconscious little native american child by the hair, to begin the long, slow fight to reach the surface.

Mad Jack: "There are times when a man can enjoy all the pleasures and gifts Mother Nature sees fit to provide with all cares tossed aside. But the moment that Adams had chosen to dive deep into a very angry rain swollen, river, wasn't the best decision he had ever made in his life. Not at all. To Adams, the sun seemed an impossible distance away, sparkling in the lurid caramel colored depths. And then he noticed the extreme cold, down where they were. It was sharp enough to sap a man's courage. He could feel his very life slipping away from his arms and legs and chest as he struggled against the mighty current that threatened to batter them against the rocks, again and again. His lungs were about to burst when Adams felt a great strength lift him and his small burden up towards the sunlight. And air."

Adams jolted awake from where he felt himself getting dragged up onto the beach by the back of his collar. "Oh, it's you, Ben. Where is she?! Come on now, I'm all right. Let go of me. I need to get to that little girl. She needs me!"

Startled by the tone of Adams voice, Ben opened his mouth. He groaned a question and moved aside.

It was only then Adams saw the small soggy child lying face down at the base of a fallen birch bark log on shore. Scrambling to the muddy child's side, he pulled her up on top of the log and listened over her chest. "Oh, no. She's drowning, Ben! Go to the cabin. Go get Jack, Ben! We're gonna need his help right away."

"RrrrRR?" murmured the grizzly.

"Go, now!"

Ben immediately loped into the high country, heading directly for home.

Quickly, Adams draped the girl face down over the log. He began to slide her back and forth over the rough bark until her chest and stomach were being squeezed and released by the pressure of movement. A minute later, a great gout of water flooded out of the child's mouth and she began gasping and choking for air. Adams swept her up onto his lap and draped her into a seated bear hug to provide her with some immediate warmth. He held her pale face gently between his hands. "That's it. Keep breathin'. You're out of the water. It's okay. I got you, little one."

The tiny child finally began to cry, her voice trembling with her shivering and her wheezing.

Mad Jack : "Grizzly Adams didn't mind the sick up which followed and stained his knees soon after. All he cared and hoped for in those first precious moments was for the life of that tiny girl in his arms. She was so much like Peg, his own daughter that he had left behind in the old country, that it brought tears to his eyes as bundled her up using the hide he had packed into his bath satchel. The tiny girl was so tired that she passed out, giving Adams a new fright on top of the old. But a fast check showed that her tiny lungs were still doing their work of keep her small body alive and well. Adams knew that shock was right around the corner and that they were not out of danger yet."

"I've got to start a fire." Adams said, laying the buckskin wrapped child inside a thick tangle of sunwarmed meadow grass. "And right quick, too. But how? My tinder's all wet from the river spray."

Mad Jack: "It was only now Adams experienced a flashback, in his blind panic. It was one of Nacoma from six years ago while Adams was being taught how to survive in the woods."

A richly furred Nakoma patiently pointed at a nearby rotted stump while a coatless, shivering Adams danced and rubbed his own bare arms, trying to stave off frostbite in his wet clothes.

Mad Jack: "It was nigh on late December. And it would be a thing of great dishonor should Adams fail the Trial Of Snow. His mind growing numb with the chill, Adams obeyed Nakoma at the last second, his fingers finding the crisp husk of a dried out wasp nest left over from last summer. My friend forgot convention. D*mn near forgot all sense as he thrust the wrinkled pulpy mass of bee scraps up into the sky swirling in a full white out fury of a blizzard. "I did it!" laughed Adams at his solemn ring of elders and Nakoma. That chief only winced once at the break of tradition. But he was a good forgiving soul and so he overlooked the greenhorn's exuberance. It tw'ern't no time at all before he struck up a flint, and a spark caught into a flame. The flame of life."

Hurrying, Adams left his tiny charge. He found a beehive stump just like the one from so many years ago that finally made him a man in his blood brother's tribe's eyes. Luck was with him and both hands pulled out a wasp nest the size of a giant racoon. He cocked an ear for the repeated wheeze of little girl's ragged breaths as she fought the water still in her chest as he worked. A single brisk rub of flint on a piece of steel, axe chopped from one of Number Seven's discarded horse shoes, was all it took to ignite the paper into a large ball of fire.

Mad Jack: "You know, feeding a fire is a simple thing, really. Like feeding a baby. Bit by bit. Scrap by scrap. Only then can you cook up some serious vittles."


	2. Chapter 2

Eagerly, Adams ripped up the tall dry grass surrounding him and threw it on the fire that was growing in size and life giving warmth.  
"Come on, little one. Stay with me. You've already made it this far. You're safe from whatever it was that after you up on that cliff."

The man's beard still dripped with icy water and river slime as he worked, studying his sudden responsibility, trying to figure out to which tribe she belonged. White doe skin leggings, tan jerkin wth blue bird bead designs. Short, shoulder length, boy like hair style tied with long trailing red trimming ribbons. No jewelry, no toy knife, and amazingly, settler boots instead of mocassins. That's what had been so heavy to almost drown her when she impacted the water. He considered her size, trying to guess her age in years. "She'd be lucky if her standing height reaches belt high." he said, talking to himself to get over his fear for the tiny girl.  
"Now what are you carrying on you? Nobody goes away from home without tools and supplies that offer protection from the elements.  
Not in these parts."

Deftly, Adams removed the girl's sodden clothes in order to bundle her up in his warm beaver skin towel. Underneath her jerkin he finally found a small satchel, secured with a shoulder strap of leather, that had been purposely hidden. He cut it free with his knife and covered her up. "This is your prayer sack. I know it. It's like Jack's. If anything will tell me who you are. This will." he told the shivering unconscious girl. "Forgive me if I take a look. I have to find your people and let them know what's happened."

The Indian child began to cough wetly, and Adams turned her over onto her side to drain out a little more of the river she was trying to spit out. "Easy. I know that water tastes real nasty. I'll make you some hot soup, rich, and full of fat for energy. I've got some pemmican that's still fresh. If I can get you to drink some of it, that should stop your shivering right quick."  
he promised, quicking building a wall of stones next to her from what he could scavenge from the river bank that would reflect a lot of the fire's heat into her body as fast as possible.

The girl began to pale, an ominous sign in one of the deep country people. "Oh, no, no, no.." he told her, "you're not leaving."  
he said. Cracking open the last chunk of wasp nest, Adams found a few cells still full of rancid honey, strong smelling and sweet. He swept up a fingerful of the cloudy syrup and opened the girl's mouth, painting a healthy glob of it onto her tongue.

The child stiffened and grimaced at the stimulus, pushing his hand away as she came unpleasantly awake. "O Yo i!" she moaned, actively making a face as she spit out the pungent jelly.

Adams startled in surprise. "I know those words. That means 'No good' in Cherokee!" He leaned into the girl's field of view speaking urgently. "A-ge-yu-tsa, a-ka-dv-ga-nv a-ho-li." (Girl, I hear ...mouth.) "Gi-yv-ha a-ni-si-di u-tlv-ga ha-wi-ni e-quo-ni-ge-yv-i" (Come, place to lay down. Sick inside. River.)

The girl's swollen eyes opened and she stopped struggling against the hands holding her shoulders. She began to cry.

Adams smiled down. "Ah, I know. I must be scary as all get out. Me, all light skinned and hairy, like one of those ghosts from your Storyteller's tales. A-ya o-s-da tsu-lv-da-ge-wi-a-ne-s-gv-di a-s-ga-yv u-ne-ga o-gi-na-ni-li." ( I am a good log cabin white man. Friend.)

Exhaustion made the girl pass out again in his arms. But not before the terror faded out of her eyes into a calmer, simple sleep.

"That's it. Ga-tli-ha u-s-ti a-yo-tli." (Sleep, little child.) he gasped in relief.

An unnatural commotion in the woods caught his ear. His head shot up and he started shouting. "That you, Jack?! I know that mule of yours is much faster than you are whenever he puts a serious mind to it." Then he spied Number Seven crashing through the thick popular trees with a full pack on, including his home made medicine kit. He smiled as Seven began braying in recognition at the sight of him as he hurried in to Adam's side in order to get away from the guiding Ben who was nipping at his heels.

"He gets the lead out when I start waving a stick, Adams. This better be a bonafide emergency, cause I'm going to be stiff fer a whole week after this kind of running p-" The trapper's cussing died abruptly when he saw the injured little girl wrapped up in thick fur lying so still in front of Adam's fire. "What in tarnation?! She's Cherokee, Adams!" he said in alarm, backpedalling awkwardly away from her.

"I know. She spoke a bit before she blacked out on me. And I think she understood me back. You need to help me with her."

Nearby, Adam's bear rose up on his seated haunches and begged a little.

The trapper eyed up Ben and sighed. "What's wrong with her?" Jack finally said suspiciously. "I don't think I want to mess around with a child from their tribe. Her parents are likely to kill us both once they find out we have her. Even Nakoma wouldn't risk an encounter."

"She fell over the falls. She was being chased, Jack. Whoever or whatever it was almost killed her. That wouldn't have happened if she was anywhere near her family. I think we're pretty safe handling her." Adams said firmly,  
frustrated at Jack's reluctance.

Finally, the edge of panic left the trapper's face. "Was her issue drowning?"

"Almost. I got most of the water out." Adams told him. "She never quit breathin' on me."

"She's got a chance, then. I'll see what I can do. I've got your poltice, more wraps, some astrigent herbs to make some tea.." the old man offered gingerly, still reluctant and wisely so. "Lord knows. She might develop pneumonia after that kind of soaking."

"Thanks, Jack." Grizzly Adams beamed. "I wasn't about to let a child die in my woods. And neither were you."

Grizzly Adams, narrating: "I don't know what kind of prayer I should say this morning, what would be right. But I'm mighty grateful Ben's bee hive stink drove me to a bath in the water today. His sweet tooth ended up saving a little girl by proxy. If she lives or dies, a bear is watching over her. And medicine that powerful ought to mean something in all three of us."


	3. Chapter 3

Mad Jack: "I don't know that much about doctoring people. My sawbones ways usually lie with the four footed folk kind, like Adam's orphan fawns, or.. my very own Number Seven. When I saw that Cherokee child lying so still by the fire, I knew I had to work fast with what I could already reckon, or she was going to die on both of us, outright."

The old trapper moved pretty fast for a man his age. He tossed down Seven's lead rope and got over to Adams in a few seconds, kneeling quickly. "Get her head up, Adams. She can't breathe well enough on her side like that." the old trapper told the greenhorn. "Whatever water she had filling her chest's now gone. Her innards have been soaking it all up like a sponge. See? She's no longer gurgling."

"I thought she was in shock." Adams said defensively. "I thought you're supposed to lay someone flat when they faint so the blood can get right back to her head where it belongs." James lifted her carefully, returning the fur wrapped, soggy girl into a snug bear hug in his arms. "I still got you little one. You're going to be just fine."

Mad Jack did his best to offer a toothy smile. "No need to get your knickers into a kink. Her pass out situation's a special case. Now, you did all right by using that honey on her. I can smell it on her breath. All that sugar will get her ticker really cranking in a few minutes. We best get ready." Jack said, beginning to rub the little girl's hair dry with a corner of a buffalo hide he pulled from Seven's pack.

"Get ready for what?"

"For us. She might get scared, and try to run away fast, when she comes back to her senses." Jack theorized. "We're not her family. Not in the slightest."

"Well, Jack, I already explained things to her when she woke up after I got her out of the river. I think she understood that I wasn't going to hurt her. Besides, Ben's here. No Cherokee alive will ever be frightened by anyone who's got a grizzly for a friend." James said, patting the huge bear's side affectionately. "They told me so, once, themselves."

Ben rose up on his haunches and moaned an agreement, offering a howdy paw for Number Seven's benefit. The burro wanted nothing to do with him and made tracks to go stand in the river so he could cool off his hooves.

"They did?" Mad Jack did a double take back at Adams. "I didn't know you met any other tribe other than Nakoma's."

"That's where I learned some of her language. Enough to talk to her." James said.

"I didn't know that." Jack mumbled, reaching into his burlap shoulder sack for a tin of ginseng and other pepper herbs to add to the pemmican stew he saw Adams beginning to cook.

"There's a lot you still don't know about me." James said. "Before I met you, I met whom I think, is her tribe. In my memory, they seem like they were dressed exactly the same."

"Not like that, they weren't." said Jack, pointing to the muddy prayer sack Adams had set aside to take a look at later. "That there's a death sack. Any child who's discovered to be abnormal in any way, even at her late age, can be killed by their warriors for being weak in the eyes of Nature. A culling became acceptable once her soul was put into that talisman and then hung around her neck. It's usually done after a few… mystical sessions in a sweat lodge. Her parents had no say in the decision. The tribe's protectors decided her fate."

"That's pure craziness, Jack! I don't believe you! Down right murder? Just because some little girl like her, isn't perfect?" Adams was beside himself with anger. "She looks absolutely fine to me."

"Maybe only in the way she looks." Jack said gently. "What her mind does on a daily basis might be another thing."

"You agree with what they did to her?" James was furious. "Whoever they were up there on that cliff, they tried to kill a mother and father's daughter!"

"No. I don't agree. Absolutely not, Adams. But because you interfered with one of their laws that they have every Great Spirit given right to carry out, that might mean a whole heap of trouble, for both of us, if they ever find out that we actually saved her life today." said the trapper. "If she doesn't pass away in the night, just what are we going to do with her?"

"There's only one thing we can do. I'll adopt her as my one of my own." Adams said quietly.

Mad Jack went ballistic. "What in tarnation! You can't do that you stupid- old.." he sputtered.

"…young"… James smiled with amusement.

"…young whipper snapper! Getting discovered by those spirit warriors, whose job it was to get rid of this person, would be like summoning the Devil himself!" Jack bellowed, spraying ample spittle into the fire, where it hissed on contact into tiny puffs of steam.

Number Seven added his own particular protest at the unexpected noises of vaporizing spit and yelling, with a high bray of burro laughter. His comical reaction was enough to shut both men up, pronto.

"I'll take my chances, Jack. I have a daughter myself. I'm absolutely positive that this little girl's parents, somewhere out there in Cherokee Territory, are still worried sick about her. That kind of attachment is mighty powerful. Especially so if you've been separated."

"No it ain't."

"Yes it is! And I'm proof!" Grizzly Adams voice broke on the last word as he remembered how he was captured and shot when he tried going back to fetch Pam after her mother died ten years earlier. "I almost died for my Pam. And I'm still willing to do so, if I have to, for her, or for any other abandoned child on my mountain!" Bright tears sprung into his eyes as the danger he thought he had outrun yet again came crashing back in the form of his potential new pursuers. "Even if these warriors decide they want my heart's blood for taking her."

Jack studied his feet, deeply cowed. "I can't argue with a father's love, Adams. No, I can't. Because I still remember my own." said the trapper quietly. "I'll go set this kettle on." Jack told him. "She's gonna wake up hungry before sundown if my guess is right."

Adams set a comforting hand on Jack's shoulder in reassurance as he turned away, but the old man didn't acknowledge it. If anything, he tensed up in a rigid sadness. Uncertain, James let him go. Shivering in the cool shade, he did what he could to get dinner set for the three of them.

Grizzly Adams: "Maybe one day Mad Jack will tell me why he's out here so much and not in town with the next of kin Nakoma says he has there. I might be horribly frightened of the choice I just made a few moments ago, but my closest friend these days has every right to his privacy. He's older than me and so he's earned his peace. Perhaps it's time for me to start earning some for myself."


	4. Chapter 4

Mad Jack noticed that when at last the half drown girl awoke, she didn't choose to speak or look at them. In fact, she didn't move at all. "Adams, I think she thinks she's dead." said the Trapper, stirring the nourishing stew he was quickly preparing over the fire. "There's no light on upstairs."

"She's been through a lot, Jack. I know I wouldn't be so willing to talk if my own family decided to try and drown me just because they saw something in me that they no longer wanted to deal with." the greenhorn replied defensively. "You know, I can almost put myself in her shoes. When I was her age, I didn't get book smart fast enough like the other kids in town. Took me until I was eleven to get any of my penmanship or math figures right."

"You did? I mean, it did?" the trapper exclaimed, pouring himself and the little girl a mug of birch tea with a pinch of medicinals. "I had no idea. When I first met you, I thought you'd be dead inside a week out here on your own. The fact that you didn't die told me a lot about the strength of your convictions despite your limited repetoire of skills as a greenhorn."

"Thank you." Adams grinned geniunely. "You still call me that you know. And I've been out here in the mountains going on twenty two years now."

Number Seven sneezed with respect and nosed his way closer to the fire, trying to get at the molasses Jack was spooning into their tin mugs. The white whiskered trapper pushed the dark burro away with a deft and clever moccasined foot to the muzzle as he thought about that. "Really? That's all it's been?" he said, puffing out his chest. "Why that's only..uh...one third and five score how long I've been traipsing around these parts." he coughed proudly.

Ben sat up from where he was laying his head on top of his front paws as he studied the girl he was guarding with his warm flank of thick fur. He sniffed her river mud coated hair and lipped it tenderly. He murmured in concern for the child, looking up at Adams when the child didn't react to him.

Adams patted his neck fondly. "She's sad, Ben, most likely. That's why she's retreating from us in her head. I did a little bit of that, too, when I first ran away to the wilderness. In fact, I felt myself acting the same way for a whole month before I ran into you at the base of that cliff face the day we became friends."

The grizzly bear snorted politely in reply and then wandered off into the darkness to seek a pine bed to sleep in for the night.

"Good. He's excusing himself. Now we can all dive in without fearing some bear drool dripping down all over our plates." Jack said brightly, for the child's benefit.

Adams thought he saw a faint ghost of a smile in her dull eyes. The greenhorn didn't look at her directly, but concentrated instead on mashing up the stew they had made into a soft paste for her to easily finger dip from a bowl. Absently, the young mountain man began humming a soft melody that floated around the forest clearing like moonlight mist.  
He wasn't surprised when a new deeper tenor voice picked up the song, adding words to the ballad about the oath all living things owed the Earth Mother.

It was Nacoma, arriving to their emergency camp. He had seen Adam's signal fire and had come. "Bah, Dash, Eih Haree. Lam ah poh boosh ta dey." he said aloud, immediately moving to the girl's side to examine her medically. He kept up Adam's singing as an offering to the little girl who was not from his tribe while he checked her injuries and eyes gently.

Adams replied to the question Nakoma had asked. "She stopped breathing only for a short time. I heard the splash she made when they threw her in."

Nakoma nodded and gestured to his lips and face with open fingers.

Jack understood. "She was blue a bit there. But just from being cold. We don't think her head's addled at all from lack of air, Nakoma. But.. she's definitely suffering the effects of a broken heart. That much is plain."

Nakoma released the child and wrapped her up in his very own black dyed buckskin night cloak. Then he sat softly, Indian style in front of her and positioned his hands out in the open, where she could see them. Then he began. *The water does not wish to take your name, young one. May I have it instead?* Nakoma asked in Cherokee, the child's mother tongue.

The little girl startled in surprise. She twisted into a smaller ball and peeked at him in a tiny glance through her tangled hair from the corner of her eyes. He still looked the same, dressed as a ridge hunter. *You are not my people, forest watcher. So do not talk to me.* But his words sounded so much like home that her defensive emotional shell cracked quickly and she began to sob bravely as stress began to overwhelm her. *I must not be weak!* she declared, failing at being strong as hunger betrayed itself in her trembling, tightly clenched fingers.

*The three of us here will not speak of it.* Nakoma told her. *The river is to blame. So spit at it.*

She did.

*Now, you are properly angry, and soon you will be well. But first you must eat and drink the light skins' food. It is better than ours for healing.* Nakoma encouraged.

*I should not. I have been fairly marked by my chief's council for the Great Spirit to t-take back.* she shot back, shaking her head.

*You will live!* Nakoma glared. "Did this Great Bear not sweep you out of death's jaws? He was sent because our Great One must find you worthy still! Do not insult any gifts that come from the Bear's friends. It is not our way, not for any of us.* Nakoma said, about the life creed all Plains people respected, no matter from which birth tribe they came.

Grudgingly, the child accepted the bowl Nakoma snatched from the fire.

*Eat slowly. Drink later.* the kindly brave whispered. *There is no shame in surviving the Parting. I should know, because I was found Clouded, too, when I was about your years.*

*You were?!* she sputtered. *Oh! My mouth is too big, Other Speaker. I have no place to-* the girl looked away immediately, shadowing her eyes with her hair in self admonishment.

*You are a child, now forced to walk the path of an Adult. And we are now your Guardians through the Bear. So always speak the way your spirit dances. I ... am Nakoma. This is the name I chose the day after I was cast aside by my people's council. What is the After name that calls to you? Now that you are free?*

Her eyes flashed in the fire light as she decided. She looked at Ben, who had returned with a paw and shoulderful bunch of wild asparagus to snack on. *I am Sa-i-qua-yi! The Bear says!*

At her shout, Jack and Adams broke off from their impromptu lullaby round, cued by the change in mood in their friends of wilder persuasion.

Nakoma turned to his companions with a serious, almost ceremonial expression. He rose instantly and grabbed a handful of green slobber from Ben's chewing jaws to paint on the girl's death sack liberally. Then he yanked it off from around her neck in full battle disgust and flung it out over the river where it was immediately swallowed by the current. Nakoma switched back to trader natural so that the old trapper and his blood brother, the seasoning settler, would understand his words more clearly. "Small-not-yet-woman's rebirth is now! All the people! Hear her new heart's name. It is Bear Grass!"

Ben lifted up mighty paws in cub-to-cub greeting at Nakoma's declaration, and roared.  



	5. Chapter 5

"Saheekwayee." Adams said smiling, unintentionally butchering the Cherokee pronunciation of the little girl's new name. "Now that's quite a mouthful. Especially being that it's also Ben's lunch after he gets his fish every day."

The child and Nakoma exchanged amused looks with typical Plainspeople dignity.

"I am pleased to meet you, Oh Brave One. Uh.., I'd better not try your name just yet. I'd like to hear it a few more times so my ears get it straight and proper like." Mad Jack addressed Sa-i-qua-yi in passable Cherokee.

"How come I'm the always the last one to pick up learning new ways to talk to people out here?" Adams complained good naturedly. He looked part jealous around the fringes.

Nakoma leaned into the little girl and gestured circles around his ear about his blood brother.

"He's crazy?!" she whispered back to her new Guardian of the Bear.

"Tah, deh nah. Boosh ah tey soush,.. stone brain." he switched from Trader Natural to English for the last two words. He nodded solemnly and together child and woodswatcher regarded Adams in polite but silent sympathy, eating small bites together from the same bowl of souped stew with their fingers.

Grizzly Adams did not take offense. "Well, at least I'm not stupid for things that aren't words in a different tongue. I know my wild medicine, navigating the woods by star constellations, how to survive the winter, and I know exactly who my friends are. That's all a mountain man could ever want, Nakoma. You taught me that." he declared, reaching for the spoon in the pot warming over the fire, to grab out more food for the two of them.

The tall brave with the long hair, and the red ribbon tied around a single temple braid adorned with an eagle feather, accepted his accolade. "You know how to save many lives, too."

Jack eyed up Sa-i-qua-yi with a proud grin. "Nakoma and Adams are blood brothers, Saheekwayee. The greenhorn saved him when a puma attack made him fall and break his leg."

"Am I his sister now?" the girl asked the trapper. "Because he fought the river for me?"

Number Seven brayed out his mulish laughter. Jack shushed him firmly with a finger threat. "She's still learning, Seven. Shut yer slobbering mouth right this instant."

Nakoma glanced at the mule briefly until Seven lowered his ears and looked away from them. Then he turned back to his tiny patient. "No, little one. You were the Bear's duty, so he acted. Your spirit is now your own to do with what you will." Nakoma told her with a smile. "What do you wish?" he shrugged shyly, knowing he was intruding on what was usually women talk.

Sa-i-qua-yi's head suddenly bobbed, her eyelids drooping, in full danger of landing in their shared stew bowl. "I... wish to sleep now... on his back." she slurred, pointing at Ben. Then she toppled over into Nakoma's arms and burped contentedly as she fell into the sleep of the well fed and throughly exhausted.

"That's... quite a request." Adams chuckled. "How about it, Ben? Are you volunteering to be her sleeping bag for the rest of the night?"

The grizzly bear was already making good his escape for the pine forest on silent paws.

"Four footed walking fur ball. Your belly's yellow!" Jack giggled. "Afraid of a little girl's night drools are ya?"

Ben did not reply and ghosted away into the shadows.

The three men laughed openly around the fire.

"My black buffalo skin is enough. I will leave it here." Nakoma said, sliding the child closer to the cooking fire for warmth. "I brought herbs against the dawn chest water that comes to those who try and fight with the river."

"I'll take those." Jack said instantly grabbing the sack the warrior held out to Adams. "Tea or poltice?"

Nakoma touched his chest and smeared his fingers over his porcupine spine vest tunic.

"Poltice it is. Thanks, Nakoma. I'll get started making it." said Mad Jack.

"A few cattails mashed up will make a fine base paste for those medicines, Jack." said Adams.

"I know. I know. Quit preaching to the choir, Reverend-Do-Gooder. I taught you that trick, remember?"

"How can I forget?" replied Grizzly Adams. "You first used that nasty stuff on me the day we met."

"I did?" the trapper sputtered, furrowing his bushy white eyebrows.

"Yep. I caught a cold a few days after I rescued Ben the cub. His bawling over my fevered, out-cold self, is what dragged you off your trap line to come investigate. You found me half sick and nearly dead in my lean to at the bottom of Panther Ridge."

Nakoma's eyes widened. "Was this the same lean to I woke up in?"

"Yeah." Adams replied suspiciously.

"It was a good lean to." Nakoma declared at his look, laying back comfortably against a fire heated boulder.

"Course it was, Nakoma. That's because I knocked down the one that Greenhorn Adams built and crafted another one that was proper made after I doctored him up a little." Jack replied.

"You did?" Adams asked.

"Uh, huh. Ben brought me all the pine boughs to stuff into the roof when I was done making the frame for it. You mean you never heard all that racket we made going on right over your head?"

"Nope." Adams said, sipping his birch bark tea. "All I remember of our supposed first meeting, was smelling that awful chest paste you slathered on me, from deep inside my sick faint."

"Huh." Mad Jack grunted, getting up to go gather the reed roots he needed. "I've never seen you sleep so soundly, not before nor since." he declared. "You didn't even say howdy when you finally opened your eyes..." his voice trailed off as he figured out which way he had to walk to get to the water's edge.

"Here." Adams said. He held up a fire lit brand he made of pine pitch and leather while they were talking.

"What!" the old man sputtered, turning around at the sound of Adam's amused voice. "I'm not lost!"

"I never said you were. I made a torch for you to light your way." Adams shrugged.

"...oh. ..thanks." said Jack, sheepishly taking it. His doe hide tawny back cracked as he retreated into the soft darkness of the forest, a bright orange firelight circle lighting his path.

Nakoma: "I do not know what to tell Adams, my blood brother, about the Laws and what they mean for Sa-i-qua-yi's people, now that the girl will clearly live. If they find the death sack floating apart from her, they will go hunting for her flesh, the after shell, in the river or elsewhere, to reunite them, for the final Scattering. They will not stop, until it is done." 


	6. Chapter 6

Grizzly Adams : "My eyes opened to a bright new day. Nakoma's prayers were heard in time. Boy I am so glad they were. I don't know why I was ever a'fearing anything last night. For our tiny guest, Sa-i-qua-yi, is still very much with us in the land of the living. ..Although, there's not much of her we can see at the moment. She's buried too deeply inside that good, thick, midnight buckskin cloak Nakoma gave her to sleep in."

Ben's great bulk moved in the half light and it suddenly got bigger when the grizzly shook off a cloud of dew that made him seem ten times his own size. "ArrrhhoOO?" he asked Adams as he snuffled his hands, looking for something good to eat. The mountain man gave him a pinyon nut to chew on. "Here you go, Ben. Maybe this will rub some of that yellow off of your teeth. You look exactly like Billy the beaver this morning."

Crunch! The grizzly chewed his morsel carefully and listened to Adams inner voice that he could see in his companion's eyes. He snorted when he was done and flicked his ears with a snap, which told the greenhorn that everybody in camp was well, hale and hearty.

"Mad Jack's medicine salve has worked its mysterious miracle once again. I have no idea how. It still just looks like a pile of stinking, steaming mud to me. And I was watching real close. I guess I shouldn't try to fathom his secret cure all's recipe. There are just too many things this morning to be grateful for that needs to be shown the proper respect. And today, mine rests with Jack and Nakoma once again."

Jack startled awake inside of the natural alarm clock that made up one of Number Seven's farts. "Eeegads! Number Seven! When in the heck are you ever going to learn to stand downwind of my sleeping furs? I even left your water bucket over there for encouragement to remind ya."

Nakoma and Adams just chuckled.

There was a brand new racoon skin and birch branch pack they were building to hold the supplies their little Cherokee child would need to come along with them on the way to the cabin, her new home. They had already figured that she would have nothing to do with riding a mule, seeing as he wasn't a bonafide plains mare or stallion, when she woke, so they had started crafting her some traveling gear.

Adams smiled at his silently sitting blood brother. "This looks mighty fine already."

Near them, Jack snatched back his breath from the world of pack animal gastric catastrophe deftly by sucking in a lungful through the collar of his jerkin. "Don't need to brush my teeth now, I can't even smell my morning mouth, mule head!"

"Ba lue ga shim ma beh. Du iye sahm waleh beesh tu." said Nakoma.

"My mule passes wind to pick on me because he loves me?!" Jack translated. "Not in a million years, Nakoma. He does it just to be cantankerous. I ought to know. I've had fifteen Number Sevens in my long workin' career as a trapper, and each and every one of them acted exactly the same way! It ain't good breeding, that's for dang sure."

"Maybe they were conspiring with each other. You know, before the reins passed over." Adams joked.

"Not between the first four. They all got cougar et before even seeing any new fourlegs getting bought." the Trapper shared.

Seven brayed his dismay at that news and heehawed in slobbering, sobbing horror. Jack immediately apologized. "Sorry, Seven. Listen to me, my hairy friend. No pumas today. Ben's here. Just stick close to him and you'll become nobody's pork chop dinner."

The mule hoofed it over to the grizzly in record time, and that cleaned up the air around the campfire considerably. Jack laughed. "Ahh, that's better. Oh, coffee's on? Don't mind if I have some, Nakoma?"

The elegant brave flashed a hand over to the pot in concession.

"Thanks." said the Trapper helping himself. "I've got some fresh corn meal we can fry up to go along with it. Adams? Wany any?" he asked, hefting up a tin cup.

The greenhorn said nothing, studying his mocassin boots thoughtfully as they warmed by the fire.

"Aren't you the conversational wall flower this morning. What's eatin' you?" Jack asked his younger counterpart with a furrowed frown.

"Dawn is always slow in coming to the mountains after you've been up all night, thinking too much. Nakoma tells me that my saving Sa-i-qua-yi might have some serious consequences later on for me to deal with. But I don't want to talk about it any more. So I'll talk about something easy instead. Hygiene is hygiene, Jack. I'm sure little Sa-i-qua-yi will appreciate the baths all of us are going to take after breakfast. She'll get more free hugs off of us that way." Grizzly Adams put out to the others as hard as poured bricks.

Jack's face fell as he rubbed off some grass that some ants had woven into his beard while he slept. "If you say so."

"That's how it's going to be, Jack. I'll not take no for an answer." Adams said, putting his boot and his giant finger down right in front of Jack's itchy nose.

"Well, in that case, I'll make an exception for you and take my semi annual complete soaking a few months early." the old timer agreed.

"Good man."

It was almost noon by the time they reached the log and sod cabin that Adams built next to Brawny River. They had walked at the little girl's pace, mindful of all of her aches and pains and other ills of the body. Nakoma and she had been performing recovery stretches and hand holding or arm swinging exercises together, side by side as they walked, that began freeing up some of the Indian girl's lingering cramped muscles. It looked for all the world to Jack and Adams, like a circus routine of trapeze artists. Certain poses had animal names, or their behaviors for titles, which their two Plains people companions shouted out in tandem as they danced or posed in actions.

At the crest of the last ridge, Bear Grass stopped dead in the slippers that Nakoma had made for her at the first sight of the man made building made of dead trees. "Is that a flood pile?"

Adams laughed wholeheartedly. "It does look like a beaver lodge, now doesn't it? Nope, that's my brand of house, an odd kind of wigwam, Sa-i-qua-yi. At least, that's how my people build them where I come from."

"Where's that?" she asked, finally reaching out a hand to touch the bark of the rain barrel in curiosity. Then she ran over to go peer at herself in the wax paper windows.

"I'm from out East, er.. my city is called Martin's Ferry and it's in a place called Ohio." Adams told her.

"Is it far?"

Nakoma answered. "It takes many moons to reach the folk place of Grizzly Adams. Four months of days on a fast horse."

"But I do have family who's closer, Bear Grass. A daughter. I'm thinking she's about your mother's age by now."

"You do not see her?" Bear Grass asked.

"I write to her and we share letters regular like, about once a month. Jack here carries the mail in exchanges between us." said the greenhorn, lifting her up so she could climb on top of the sod roof to go investigate the stone chimney.

"Hand marking is a shaman's power! Are you one of them, Mountain Friend?" said Bear Grass.

Jack chuckled. "Oh, now there's a name that fits. A-til-i O'-gi-na'-li."

"He is not." said Nakoma. "But he is wise in that way for history learning, skills, trading, and carrying stories. Come down from there."

Bear Grass took a flying leap immediately and was caught by Nakoma in a practiced shoulder to feet catching move that returned Bear Grass to the ground softly when he crouched down beneath her weight.

Jack and Adams marvelled at the stunt once they were over being startled by what at first had looked like a careless fall. "Now what's that one called?" Adams wondered aloud.

"Cougar's lunch." they both answered.


	7. Chapter 7

Nakoma- "I awaken. I hear the river song as always, but my mind is not comforted. My heart asks this today. Will Mother Sun soon smile on the lost child I see befriended by the Bear? Or will Father Sky seal her fate by the time of summer storms? I have decided that I will tell no one that I scout the forests around my blood brother's home, to see if the Death Bearers are still here. I am certain that the A-yi-do-hi will look for her a-yo-hu-hi-s-di. (The Bearers will look for her death.) Perhaps clouds on my soul from when I was Di-ho-hi-s-di (Abandoned) are making my heart weak when I think of Bear Grass. The past has no teeth when you do not think about it. But I will be strong for her. And I know, so will Adams."

Sa-i-qua-yi was greeting the dawn properly. She was sitting quietly by a view, with a bird to watch her back.

Tee-rrrRRRrr-rrrroh! screeched out Natasha, the red tailed hawk that Adams had nursed back from a broken leg.

Bear Grass didn't even turn to look at her over a furred shoulder. "Ta-wo-di! I am concentrating. You must not speak until we are done."

... tehrrr..rrr...r... the female bird of prey softly warbled as the pupils of her eyes grew and shrank with her eagerness to try out her morning wing stretching exercises as soon as the ridge's thermals started to rise. But very soon, Natasha clacked her beak a few times and held her peace, growing still on her makeshift log perch.

Nakoma's eyes widened at the little girl sitting with cross folded knees next to him. "She listens to you?"

"Yes. We have an... an...understanding as Mad Jack says."

The tall brave's face fell from incredulity to amusement. So the little girl did not have a Shadowed's special ability, only a keen sense to learn from an expert con man with a mule.

Bear Grass was unperturbed by one of her foster adults, mock-eyeing her tale. "I get to wash and eat first, then she gets a finned one on a string to hunt."

"It's therapy." said the old trapper who was the true source of the master mind, as he stepped out of the cabin in his buckskin trousers and bright red long underwear top with suspenders. "Natasha has to learn how to chase her food again after so long being hurt."

"Bu-ah-deh. Sheesh ton- eh."

"You understand the principle? How can you? You're not a medicine man, Nakoma. Doctoring the bones and muscles after the hurt heals takes real learning." Jack challenged.

Nakoma just rolled his eyes and refused to rise to the bait. "V-get-si da-de-yoh-vs-gv."

"Oh." said the old timer. "Sorry. I was never told that your mother was a shaman, and that she taught you the basics before you were ostracized." he said, scratching a woolly itch under an arm pit.

Nearby, Ben the grizzly, parroted his scritching action with relished abandon.

Jack noticed. "Ben! Would you quit copying me? Go find a solid pine tree to scratch your back on like a proper bear. Do you want to get captured by unscrupulous people who seen-ed ya and get thrown into a circus somewhere up the backside of nowhere, just because you learned a few un-bearlike tricks from me?!"

Ben rose up onto his haunches and nodded, grunting contentedly as he bobbed his head up and down.

"Yer plumb crazy, Ben. You know that?" Jack chuckled.

Sa-i-qua-yi turned to Nakoma. "What's a cir-cus?"

"Silly men in funny clothes, acting stupid, in a teepee far too big for their needs." he replied.

Jack reiterated more in Cherokee. "They also act crazy for money and risk getting eaten by animals every night."

Bear Grass' eyes got really big. "Why do they want to die?"

"Beats me. But it sure is entertaining while munching on popcorn with a sugar lolly in your other hand just to balance off all the salt." Jack sighed nostalgically.

The little girl pantomimed eating popcorn to Nakoma, who nodded at the correct interpretation of that settler word. But she frowned at the short form of lollipop.

"Sugar flower." the brave told her. "U-yo-i! (Bad)."

"No, it's not!" protested the trapper.

Nakoma gestured to his own pristine teeth. "Do not your teeth fall apart after only a few years' use of it as food? Nobody should be choosing head rot."

"The taste is worth a few holes in your teeth." and Mad Jack grinned openly to display his.

Sa-i-qua-yi turned away in disgust at the smell of his morning mouth. "The bear smells better than your face today, mountain elder."

"Really?" Jack quailed, self conscious, putting a hand to his lips. "I had a genu-ine, complete whole body bath only yesterday. I've got my cleanest clothes on, only two months old. I wonder what I messed up."

A deep booming voice nailed him from the cabin door. "Did you eat anything round and still steaming out of this pottery jar last night before bed?" glared Grizzly Adams at Jack.

"Well.."

"You did, didn't you?" Adams repeated. "Aw, Jack. How could you? I baked those honey cookies for Bear Grass to try this afternoon. And now look at em." he said, turning the wax rim jar upside down to show its empty state. "There's none of them left. I got no flour left to make any more."

"You can have mine." the trapper said sheepishly. "I apologize. I got real hungry. And so did Number Seven. He had eight more than me! And that's the honest truth."

Grizzly Adams just stared daggers, his usual smile was way in the background. "You're gathering up replacement firewood for the clay stove. You're finding those quail eggs for the batter. And I'll be danged if I'm going to let Ben suffer another bee's nest to get more honey. You're going to do that yourself, Jack."

"Wha- How? I ain't got fur as thick as his! Only on my face.."

"Slather yourself head to toe in mud, works for me." said Adams.

"But I'll get all dirty.." Mad Jack whined. Number Seven echoed his dismay with a bray of his own.

"Then take another bath afterwards, Jack. You know, some people bathe every day back where I come from. It's only common decency when you're out in public, with that many people around."

"But I'm not in public. Me and Number Seven are private. Very private. Just us and entire mountain ranges sometimes." the trapper continued, balking again.

"So sneaky." said Bear Grass. "I wanted to taste an oven stone. I have never had one."

Mad Jack was cowed. "...not even some wild honey while growing up?..."

"That was a gift, a something for just the favored kids, who kept up on their lessons and skills." Sa-i-qua-yi shouted, feeling the burn of shame once again. "I never could."

She saw that her confession shut up both the Other People and Number Seven.

Nakoma used the silence to brighten her spirit with a kernel of wisdom. "Do not forget. You are free! Anything you want or need from the land is yours to take. Just do not take it all like the fat man." he teased Mad Jack.

The old buckskin clad trapper took his chastisement with honor. "I'll take that lickin', Nakoma. I took food out of the mouths of babes. I don't know what came over me. Maybe I sleptwalked et because I was so worried about Bear Grass here and her future. I didn't even find any crumbs on my shirt when I woke up this morning to show me what I had done."

"Those were the ants, Jack. You know, the ones who live with you because you don't wash proper? They were trying to show you how to get clean for ya." the younger mountain man chuckled.

"Oh ! All right. All right. You, two.. I'll do all those things you said. But I don't have to like it. No siree. Not even down to getting... slicked up in swamp goo to go raidin' the beehive tree Ben hasn't found yet. ."

Err? asked the bear out loud, pointing a muzzle in their direction.

"Shut your ears, Ben. You heard nothing." both Adam and Jack hushed at the grizzly.

Nakoma and Bear Grass just laughed when their great furry friend snorted in ursine frustration, flattening a few buttercups with both front paws.

Skunk and Crow were almost ready to break their camp. Crushing the last of the acorns between a rock and their long knife blades that they had gathered for a fast breakfast, they quickly ate and then rose to put out the night fire.

They didn't have far to go to find the Sieve, the place were all things in the river were caught and held by fallen trees woven into an ancient, dead beaver dam. There they would look for the little girl's shell and her token bag, to burn.


	8. Chapter 8

Nakoma drew Sa-i-qua-yi aside from where they were watching Adams, Mad Jack and Ben fuss over making a new batch of baked honey oven stones.

The little girl immediately grew serious when she saw the tall brave touch his arrow quiver's strap slung over his body. "I am all eyes, Forest Watcher. Do my killers come today?" asked Bear Grass.

"No. Nor will they ever, on our lands. You are in the country of the Free Plains People now, and we will protect you. Where are your old coverings? I have an idea." he announced. Sa-i-qua-yi ran into Adam's cabin, carefully unfastening and then refastening the door's latch and rope hung lock as she passed through. She returned with her sodden, doeskin tunic and trousers that had been her sacrificial garments with undisguised distaste. "Shall we bury them?" she wondered.

"We will give them to Brother Wolf to maul." The brave grinned slyly, gesturing at the half grown rehabilitation critter, currently teasing Ben away from his pile of emptied honeycombs so he could steal a few. "Do you know the light skin children's game, tug of war? I think that pup needs to exercise his teeth today so he can mend his other bones faster."

Bear Grass was intelligent with strategy, even if other parts of her mind were slow to learning skills or written words. She gleefully rescued Ben from being harried, by waving her old clothes at the wolfling, dancing in high laughter. The pup immediately latched on to them, in play, and soon both were happily tearing the skins to shreds between their hands and jaws. The gainly pup, ignoring the huge willow leg splint he was wearing, made short work of the hides before his sweet tooth got the better of him and he abandoned the sport to try his luck again at worrying the grizzly bear.

Nakoma nodded, please at his charge's handiwork. "You are not quite eaten yet. Give me your arm." he gestured at the girl, drawing out a small fish gutting blade. He squatted down to sear it over the mud and daub oven fire. When the metal was clean, he dipped it into the rain barrel to finish the cleansing.

"Adams says doing that keeps out wound sickness, when it is used." Bear Grass remembered suddenly.

"It is true. Give me your favored arm. I need some of your life's blood for the river." the brave said softly. "There will be pain. Will you accept it?"

Sa-i-qua-yi screwed up her tired eyes for a few seconds, fingering the bruises that hitting river rocks underwater had left on her face. "I must be dead to the Bearers." she said at last.

"You are not going to be killed. Not by me." answered Nakoma.

"Nor by anybody else, Bear Grass." Grizzly Adams promised.

Then the greenhorn hushed Mad Jack with a small touch, before the old trapper could protest Nakoma cutting on the child. "Well, he could use my blood instead. Red is red." mumbled the old man.

"Those Bearers are expert trackers. They know whose is whose on sight. It has to be hers if we want to try and fool them." Adams nodded to Nakoma, agreeing with the plan.

Bear Grass finally laid down, face up, in the grass with her feet propped high up against a tree suitable for bracing. "I give my consent to you, Elder. Make the slash."

"It will not be deep." Nakoma announced. With a silent prayer to the Great Spirit he closed his eyes and let his heart guide his knife to the right place that would do the least harm.

Bear Grass sucked in a breath, but held still as a nicked artery spurted heart's blood onto the pile of newly wolf rended rags. When a fairly large amount stained the clothes, Nakoma swiftly tied up the slice with the ribbon from his own braid. His loose hair blew free in the wind, long, and beautiful with hope. ::She is like me, a mud mind, cast off, out of turn. Let her move away from her Home Tribe as you permitted this one, who stands before you, so long ago..:: he prayed.

Right then, Matilda, the hawk, woke up from her mid-morning nap sharply. She sounded, and started flapping on her perch wildly. Grizzly Adams rushed to untie her fetters. "She's ready?!" he asked, surprised. He coo'ed urgently to calm her in a hug against his chest.

"We need a messenger.." Bear Grass mumbled dizzily. "To send our r-request... to the sky."

Mad Jack noticed, and could not help addressing her weakness. "Young'un, don't faint on us. It's over."

Nakoma flared his nostrils at the trapper's comment that went against his people's politeness acumen about acknowledging weakness, but he remained silent. Jack's heart was good, even though his sense of decorum was not. He gestured gimme fingers at Adams. "Yey ah ba shey koo di, Adams... Mah-til-dah."

"She won't stand still, Nakoma. I can't just give her to you! She'll shred you up in her talons in seconds, acting like this!" he insisted, struggling to not hurt the bird while he quickly pulled off her tresses.

Softly, Nakoma and Bear Grass started singing in a soothing harmony chant that Adams recognized. It was a sweat lodge prayer, sung only by tribal orphans, who were finally decided that they wanted to live.

The white iris anger in Matilda's eyes faded and she fell into a wide awake stupor, entranced by the musical sound.

Adams watched his blood brother run his hair trails into the warm, gory wet clothes, before he wrapped its thick length protectively around an arm in preparation as a shield against the hawk's gripping strength. The greenhorn, amazed, open his cradling arms from around the bird and watched as the now quiet hawk stepped onto Nakoma's pro-offered forearm perch gracefully. Nakoma's eyes were still closed as he tensed up his muscles easily to take her weight and to resist her strength. Then he whispered Bear Grass's new name near Matilda's soft head. He launched her into the air with a cry, back into freedom. Matilda took flight strongly, and winged up to a great height in seconds.

The girl and brave slowly let their singing drift off into silence.

Mad Jack was dumbfounded. "How on earth did you two know that she was ready to fly? I ain't never seen nothing like that in all my born days." he gasped, watching the hawk's silhouette dwindle away into the distance.

Bear Grass just smiled as she sat up against the tree without Nakoma's help. She winced briefly at her arm, and accepted the hot tea that Adams immediately served her to counteract the blood she lost to Nakoma's knife.

Nakoma grunted and opened his eyes to peer at Jack. "We pay attention. Better than you. Our eyes are younger." he said in Cherokee so Bear Grass would get the joke.

"Says who, Nakoma? You two? Why...I can spot a bum tooth shining in the mouth of a yawning rock hopping goat that's two, no.., three mountain ranges away on a cloudy day! Or a scratched scale on a brook trout in the rain in the middle of a cascade of roaring rapids!" he declared, completely missing the teasing jab.

Adams laughed. And so did Ben.  
And it was only then that Mad Jack realized that he had been had, yet again, by smart alecky Plainsfolk. He turned his back to the others to mind the earthen made cookie oven, mumbling to himself.

Nakoma tossed his head back to comb his hair with some fingers. Then he took one of Matilda's dropped leather tresses to do up his braid again. He left the ends of it, stained red with her blood. Bear Grass approved, finally comforted at being a survivor of circumstance, like Nakoma.

The brave rechecked the firmness of his wrapping around Sa-i-qua-yi's blood letted arm to be sure it wasn't leaking, and then he scooped up the gory bundle he had made. "Your old life dies in the water, as it should. I will take it there now. Your new one, flies free, Bear Grass, and it now listens to no other person. Heed only, the blowing wind. For it will never lie to you."

Adams, the sleepy little girl, and the ancient trapper, watched their good friend the brave, dash off down into the valley to toss the bloody, ripped up clothes into the river, and marvelled. Even Nakoma's shadow rippled like quick silver, beneath the fleetness of his moccasined feet across the ground and he hastened to finish his self appointed, guardianship task.

"Like a lizard, I shed you!" said Sa-i-qua-yi of her past memories of banishment and her near death experience in the river. "New breath was given to me by the hairy light skin and his Bear. I will not squander it by baby crying at what used to be. I have a new heart for my three new friends, who surround me only with love, not shame!"


	9. Chapter 9

Skunk and Crow were hungry. But their latest assigned shadow task was still pressing.

Skunk drew up his tired horse. "We should stop again and fill ours and our horse's bellies." he called out to his mounted companion on the other side of the river.

Crow lifted his chin in disagreement. "Our duty is not complete. The mud mind's shell, that we cast away, is not yet found. We have to know that her soul has successfully returned to the mountain. It will be a sign that she can be reborn again, next spring, as a new, whole child to our tribe."

"I do not like this duty. It does not please me." replied Skunk.

"Returning flawed people to a mother river has always been given to unproven warriors." shouted Crow. "It is a kindness. So their intense suffering in trying to live and keep up with unmarred people is spared."  
"She was my sister!" Skunk cried out, fighting the angry tears threatening to spill down his black painted face.

"That is why I was chosen as the one who honored and aided her passing from this life for the next by giving her to the waters." Crow said gently, taking his horse through the swift current to return to his best friend's side. "The heart can be weak and it will always covet weaknesses if we do not stay on our guard."

"Dragonfly was not weak. She could run faster that we could!" Skunk grimaced, his grief no longer in check.

"But she could not learn the survival lessons. Nor keep them once they were learned. She was as an old person. No one wishes to be a burden to any one else. It is the ultimate last weakness we all face. She was born with hers. And could not throw it off. It is known that old people sacrifice themselves for the good of the tribe once they know they can no longer keep up." Crow explained.

Skunk leaped off of his gray, mud painted horse. "A natural death has dignity, yes. But not one forced, just because one does not understand how to sacrifice. A shadowed youth cannot know this. It takes many moons to be at peace with giving that gift at the end."

Crow slid off his caked honor mount, too. "Is this why you are troubled my friend? Is it because you were almost marked as a mud mind when you were Dragonfly's age?"

Skunk's face screwed up in sadness, but he whirled his back so his friend could not see his pain. He hung his head and kept his eyes shut so he could not see the river that had claimed his sister. "I know not why my spirit is clouded."

"Perhaps it is love, son of the chief. For you and Dragonfly did share the same womb as two, in one birth time." Crow said, making sure he did not meet his best friend's eyes that were pouring out their weakness as water. "It is for that pain of loss that I bear this task with you until it is done."

"Why did this have to be a Law?!" Skunk shouted, fighting to keep the memory of his sister's face out of his heart.

Crow did not hesitate. He drew out his honor blade. The one he did not use on the girl at Skunk's insistence. He pulled back Skunk's head and place the sharp steel against the pulse of his soul brother's throat. "It's because we are being hunted, Skunk. Paleskins who out number us as many as the stars in the night sky, hold knives to our throats. Like this! And so we run. Because we know we cannot hold out against this new enemy. Not for many years yet. And so as we run, we must shed all weaknesses so that we might escape and have a chance to disappear into the wilderness until we are strong enough to fight for our land and home, and win." he hissed. He threw away his grip on his crying friend and remounted his horse, resheathing the non-blooded blade. "This is for the good of the tribe, Skunk. Her sacrifice, being known and honored by us, is not wrong, nor is it in vain! All of us must be equally strong. Or we will all die. She had to go!"

"We could have taken care of her together! Like a respected Elder. She had wise ways with animals. They listened to her, Crow! That was useful power." Skunk shouted.

Crow countered. "No one knew that for sure. Not even I."

"It was too soon yet! A wisewoman is not born overnight!"

"Mother knew! And I believed her."

"A woman bears children. She cannot be trusted to not try and keep her young close for as long as possible. This is her nature." Crow said.

"And it is the nature of men to protect their women. Especially those who may be Wise. Why can't you see this?"

"Skunk. You are dishonoring this day. Where is your head? Has it drowned in the river, too?" Crow asked, getting mad.

Skunk had had enough. With a scream, he leaped up onto his barebacked stallion, and kicked his heels deep into his horse's flanks. The bereaved brother charged Crow and tackled him, flinging both of them to the ground and off their horses, who spooked and dashed a few yards away before obeying ground tied battle training.

Skunk and Crow began to fight belly to belly, with fist blows and knee jabs. The two impassioned teenaged men rolled and battled, each skillfully driving home the teeth of their mutual arguments in accepted and proper Cherokee brawling without their weapons. To the victor would come a final decision on who was right based on physical strength.

They were so engrossed and blinded by fistfuls of each other's hair that neither saw Nakomah silently rush down upon them with a stone axe.


	10. Chapter 10

His momentum separated the boys long enough for him to first grab and tie up one of the Cherokee braves, and then the other in short order. He wrist bound trussed their ankles and then put Skunk and Crow back to back against each other with strong strips of rawhide that he always wore bound to his waist to contain captives or live game. "Be silent, young trackers! For now, you are in MY People's territory." Nakomah hissed to them in passable Cherokee when they started to yell and writhe against their snug bindings.  
Crow was stunned. "How do you know my Mother's tongue?! You are speaking to us against all belief, Sioux!" he bellowed in affront.

"I am a man who listens, boy, and so have grown wise beyond my years. Why do you not know mine? We are neighbor clans. We both have Wisewomen who know each other's, and they teach all of our warriors. Did you have trouble with the lessons?"

Crow broke off eye contact with Nakomah, mocking him with the gesture, trying to irritate, as a stab of fear filled him.

Nakomah remained nonplussed, regarding them mildly without moving."Talk."

Skunk grew calm and still when he suddenly saw the red stains on the ends of their captor's braids. "We are your hostages, Truth Seeker. I see you, and your right to seek us. We will not fight you, on our oath."

Crow stopped struggling to free his wrists and ankles, eyes widening at Skunk's formal term of respect to a stranger Elder. Then he saw the same thing. "You have blooded your hair, Forest Brave. Why?"

"I am fighting a battle of honor for one who cannot."

Skunk's nostrils flared. "Oh, Father Sky. That is the blood of my sister!" he sobbed, recognizing the scent. "Did you find and eat her shell?"

Crow panicked, remembering the tales the older boys had told him about Sioux deviousness and evil ways. "We were only doing our D-Duty."

"A Duty does not condone the murder of an immature being!" Nakomah spat. "You are disgusting in my sight!" he roared.

"Then kill us now!" Crow challenged. "For we cannot go home without the proof!"

Skunk began crying as his fear grew under the fiercesome gaze of one of his enemies. Tears filled his eyes silently. ::I will not shame myself. I will face my Death like a man.:: he mentally quailed, failing to contain his weaker emotions in the proper manner. ::But I feel so small.::

Nakomah rocked back on his heels from where he crouched over Skunk and Crow with his axe, and leaped away, with an inarticulate cry of rage. "Killing stupid boys is a coward's path! I will not take it for a crime that has not been committed!" Then his infuriated expression twisted into a sudden smile at the boys solely for their benefit.

Skunk immediately understood. "You mean, Dragonfly is.. still alive?" He began weeping openly and unashamed.

But Crow's eyes narrowed after his utter surprise at that declaration. "You have defied my chief's wishes, taker of boys." he snarled.

"Dark Cloud is not my Chief! And I have not captured you as prizes. This is a discipline act that any adult may give a child, such as you." Nakomah stated sharply. "Scouting outside of home turf when you are not old enough to be warriors, is a Universal offense that any Plains People in the world have agreed to recognize and correct. Sa-i-qua-yi, like you, was also rescued from herself, by an adult. A Paleskin, Adams, who properly respects all life, and a Great Bear,.. took her back from Mother River fairly."

"The Great Spirit saved my sister?" whispered Skunk, cowed and awed.

"Your sister?" Nakomah startled.

"Yes, Truth Seeker. Dragonfly and I are two-babies. Crow chose me to Witness the Law when I did not wish to." Skunk said adamantly.

"You felt you had to obey because you were the younger." Nakomah guessed, reading his face.

"Skunk! We are in the right about Dragonfly through your father. Forget the Trespass Rule. It is not important." Crow insisted.

"Crow! This day was sour in your mouth, too. Just as bitter, as it was in mine. My heart does not wish it, but my eyes see it. Our chief has been growing old and he is losing his wisdom. Our hearts were telling us so. Do you not remember?" Skunk asked.

"He is your father! War Chief of the entire Nation!" Crow admonished.

"Yes, he is. And it is the son of a chief's Duty to tell him when he becomes old, so he does not hurt the People. I was a coward in not telling him, about what we all have seen, to his face last night, before we took my sister away to die." Skunk sighed, his tender age and heart, showing strongly. "I am not brave enough to face the truth."

"You are facing it now." said Nakomah. "And that is something to be said, by all."  
The Forest Brave drew out his knife and freed Skunk and Crow. "I am Nakomah and I return you to your freedom." he officially declared, cutting off the hide ropes which bound them. "You must decide what you will do next. Take this home." he said, dropping the wolf torn sacrificial tunic at their feet from a bundle he had tied at his back. "You may not have the girl. Your People have cast her away to the wolves. She will be mine, in kin, like a daughter, to my tribe. Go tell Dark Cloud about MY act and Adams' feat. She will have her new family by rite. So say we four, to your Chief."

Crow immediately shot to his feet and mounted his horse. "Let us leave this matter, Skunk. We have what we need." he said, holding up Sa-i-qua-yi's gore soaked leather clothes.

Skunk made no move to regain his feet. "I am going to see Dragonfly, Crow. Return alone."

"It is forbidden!"

"I do not care. I am her brother. My heart says I must be with her. I owe it to my mother who is not yet old. You are now my honor watcher. Guard it well and share my choice to remain."

Crow was still self defensive and half fearful of Nakomah's strength which stood out in his body's pose and confidence. "Our warriors will come! There will be a trial held, Skunk, against the pale man who interfered with her passing!"

Nakoma bent low and washed the blood free of his braids methodically in the water at Crow's horse's feet deliberately.  
"So let them come. We will defend any being's life that we see in danger. No non-Warrior blood will be shed by my People, Crow. Tell him this. But caution any male adults, to beware. The Bear is very fond of her. And so, are we. This land and anything still on it by dawn tommorrow, will remain his."

Wheeling, the older teen Cherokee lashed his horse with the bloody rags he now held and galloped off.

"Sa.." Nakoma muttered in a curse, as he turned away to walk back to Adam's cabin to tell him and Mad Jack about what may be a future turn of events. He glanced back when Skunk did not rise from his place on the ground by the river. "Come, I will lead you to Sa-i-qua-yi. Her ordeal has made her weak, but she is most definitely not sleeping."

"Her name is Dragonfly." said the angry almost man, worried about his sister. "Father gave it to her because of her green eyes."

"Her name is Bear Grass." Nakoma corrected again, this time in full Sioux. "Adam's Bear chose it for her because she survived the Knotted Waters in spite of you, and your careless friend. Are you coming with me, or do you want Brother Wolf to find you after dark?"

Skunk made haste to follow Nakoma, so close that he was almost in his same footsteps.


	11. Chapter 11

Sa-i-quai-yi was sitting in the sun drenched grass next to Ben, giving him an enthusiastic neck scruff rub, when they arrived at the cabin. She barely glanced towards Adams or her brother's way. She uptook Ben's face and lined it up with her own pert one, until they were nose to nose. "I don't have to talk to this one. Great Bear, truly, I am one of yours now." she said with a haughty, dignified pride. She tried not to let anger rule her heart.

"Dragonfly!" shouted Skunk, as the young, not-yet-a-man Cherokee brave ran up to his newly found sister.

The tiny, bruised, arm bandaged girl in the black doeskin didn't stop her careful, affectionate regard of her shaggy benefactor, eyeball to eyeball. "That is not my name, invader to this land." she spat. "It's Bear Grass!"

Skunk flushed red with stress and fear, knowing that he was still heavily trespassing onto Nakoma's people's territory and that he was not a sanctioned adult war scout for his yet. "Whatever you call yourself. You're coming with me!" He warned, grabbing her unhurt arm. Sa-i-quai-yi gave a little scream and broke out of his grasp.

Growling huge, Ben the grizzly rose up onto his hind paws and stood up, menacingly, putting the girl behind him and squaring off against the boy.

"Whoa, easy, Ben!" Adams rushed forward, giving Ben a shove backwards. He offered him a treat to soothe his woodland friend's flamed ire with a handful of berries pulled from a pocket. "It's just a family spat. You remember those. They just have a few things to work out. Leave em be. Come on. What they have to say to each other is between Nakoma, Bear Grass, and our new visitor. Let's not get in the way of their quarrel. Stay by me at the lake, until the fur stops flying. We'll do some fishing for supper." he said.

Ben's ears perked up and he was finally won over with the bribe of future fish. "Rrr?" he grunted, glancing back at them.

"She'll be fine. The boy didn't mean anything by that grab. He's just scared for her. He doesn't know who we are yet." Jack told the grizzly bear. A hearty smack to Ben's flank finally convinced him to go follow Adams and his pinecone bobbered fishing pole.

Nakoma grasped both youngsters by their shoulders and took them over to his camp fire. "Both of you! Sit down! Have you forgotten proper politeness among People? You are the same blood clan. Why are you acting like two week old cubs in front of each other?" said the Forest Sioux.

The two siblings ignored the adult standing over them completely.

"I am dead to you, Skunk! Do not speak to me! You let crow take me and did nothing when he cast me into the Waters!" she sobbed, her fury at her twin flaming full force in her eyes. "The Great Bear gave me back the life you threw away like an empty oyster. I am no longer yours!" she cried, tears filling her pinched face.

Skunk burst into love filled tears for his sister. "Please, my sister.. I know now that we were never meant to be apart. I will never leave you again!" and they wrapped their shaking arms around each other in the fierce, desperate hug of the truly terrified.

"You must go back home. You are the Chief's son. That is your place." Bear Grass said gently, stroking her brother's hair like a mother would a troubled child.

"I hate our father! He never should have declared you Shadowed!" Skunk shouted, in bright guilty pain.

"But it's true. I was made in a different way." she nodded, lifting up her brother's face to wipe away the tears. "And every one knows it."

"But the Cull.."

"..is over. I have been forgiven my flaws, by these people, and the Great Bear. There is no need to anger Him further. By our law,  
I am free. Mother River decided that she no longer wanted to keep me and called the Bear in to save me." replied the tiny girl.

"How was that possible? Great Bears do not live with People." Skunk puzzled, looking at the strangers in their midst.

"This one does, Skunk." said Adams quietly, coming close only when Nakoma gave him a nod of permission. "He's my best friend. I saved Ben when he was a cub. And he's saved not only your twin sister, but me, and Nakoma, several times. He's got a heart as big as this whole entire mountain for just about any living thing once he gets to know them proper like."

Skunk froze where he was when Ben shuffled in and snuffled his hair deeply with a nip or two at the scent of fear still resting on the boy. Then he placed a gentle paw on Skunk's cross legged lap in greeting. Skunk looked up with an incredulous look of awe on his face.  
"He accepts me? Why? I almost killed my only sister." he choked, his face wet.

"He likes just about everybody who shows a little love for somebody else. Like what you've just shown Sa-i-quai-yi right now." said the smiling greenhorn. "But you must be tired. We're more than a day away from your home village. Will you stay with us for some food and a place to rest as a guest, Skunk? Ben just proved to me that you really are a good person inside."

The boy looked up tentatively, still working up the courage to pet a Great Bear. But then he smiled and took his sister's hand. "I'd be honored, but.. this watcher has a true grievance with me. I am a trespasser.." he said sweeping a hand at Nakoma.

Adam's blood brother drew himself up fiercely, looking every inch, the seasoned warrior. But then he relaxed and sagged onto the ground, to worry the fire with a stick. "Weren't you lost? Didn't a bee sting Crow's horse and caused yours to panic and run away? I am returning you back to your parents at dawn as is required by our Forest Law. A frightened mount's flight is not considered a trespass." he smiled. "I do not think Crow will tell a tale other than that one on why you no longer are with him tonight. His belief on what he thinks is the pride of a Bearer, will not allow him to speak the truth."

Old Mad Jack finally made his way over to the log seat by the axe stump. "Well, aren't you quite the gussed up young thing." he said of Skunk's streaked ceremonial paint and dark skinned coverings. "Why is your own Chief trying to get children to murder other children?" he asked the boy. "I still can't wrap my head around that idea. It's too hideous to even think about."

"If I knew that, I would challenge him, for my sister's return to her rightful status."

Nakoma turned to the white whiskered trapper. "Dark Cloud feels his years. We have seen other strange orders that he has given his People. Adams, Jack,... We've seen them trying to hunt buffalo in the wet season, moving village sites and resettling them, in the same place several dawns later.. The order to cull Bear Grass is just the latest odd thing we've noticed. Skunk says he knows his father is starting to fade. It is why he chose to accompany me here to see Bear Grass instead of returning home with his friend Skunk to present the final blood evidence."

"Won't that get you into trouble at home?" Adams asked Skunk.

"Not if I return home safe and unharmed. My horse coming back alone on his own is common enough with me. For many years, I was a terrible rider."

"As I was good." giggled Bear Grass.

"That's because horses adore you, sister. You don't even have to try." grinned Skunk. "They all want to please you."

Bear Grass sat up suddenly, excited. "I can speak to the daughters of the air, Skunk. One answered me as I greeted the morning and took her freedom at my suggestion."

"You did that?" Jack asked the native girl. The look on his face was part fearful and part caution.

"Yes. Matilda told me that she wanted to go and so she left when I said okay."

Ben the bear sat up on the lake shore in the growing darkness, and moaned a question.

Adams, Jack, Nakoma, and Bear Grass all started laughing.

Skunk angled his head and felt left out. "What was that? W-What did He say?"

Bear Grass shared it. "The Great Bear wanted me to ask a Daughter to catch a fish for Him."

-  
Crow tossed the sodden mass of bloody, beared deerhide onto the ground in front of his Uncle, Dark Cloud. "It is done." he said.

Weeping, Bear Grass's mother, Dove Tail, scooped up her daughter's clothes and began wailing on her knees as she held them to her chest, in passionate mourning.

"Auntie.." startled Crow.."I am sorry, but.. I-"

Dark Cloud held up his hand from where he sat on his dais."Leave the woman be. She knows what I had you do was for the good of the tribe. We cannot be seen as weak or having anything weak, by anybody. What other news have you, of our neighbors to the north in River country?"

"I... saw a Forest Watcher." answered Crow truthfully.

"And.."

"And.. nothing much, my Chief. He.. reminded me that I was in his territory improperly, being underaged as I am."

Dark Cloud scoffed, making a clucking noise down his withered nose. "And what of my son? The warriors say his horse ran into the village alone."  
Crow finally held up the back of his elbow to display a prominent beesting bite. "He was tossed and we were separated by the little sisters and their wrath."

Dark Cloud threw back is head and laughed hoarsely. He was not uncaring of his wife's grief. He left his chair and knelt by her side to offer her his own chief's cloak as comfort. "Be easy, beloved. Sometimes the very young, like the very old, must gift the tribe, by their voluntary absence forever, in order for the rest of us to live easier. You may go, Crow. You have earned a closer place to the fire in the house of men to learn more about scouting."

Crow accepted a token of dried tobacco leaf before he bowed low to Dark Cloud, and backed out of the tent.

The sound of Dove Tail's soft crying filled his ears, but not into his heart anywhere deep enough, to warm it.


End file.
